


Musings on Doubt, Faith, and Missed Opportunity

by shadowkat67



Series: Angel The Series - Season 5- Episode Reviews [8]
Category: Angel: the Series, Joan of Arcadia
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Review, Gen, Meta, Reviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-11-15
Updated: 2003-11-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22398163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Series: Angel The Series - Season 5- Episode Reviews [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612354





	Musings on Doubt, Faith, and Missed Opportunity

Ever have the feeling that things are slowly slipping through your fingers? That no matter what you do you can’t make things work?

In Hellbound – a ghostly presence known as Pavayne is attempting to pull Spike into hell. As Pavayne tortures Spike physically and with hallucinations – Pavayne begins a monologue, which he hopes will sew worry and resignation in Spike. As essayist and ATS reviewer, TCH writes, on the All Things Philosophical About Buffy and Angel fanboard, _“it is not self-doubt that Pavayne is trying to instill, but resignation, certainty of failure, of submittal to his power. And finally, Spike picks up something Pavayne didn’t mean to let slip. That reality bends to desire. That, if you search, if you identify what you want, what you need, you can start to regain power. In doubting Pavayne, Spike is on the road to saving himself. Back comes the duster, he resumes a role he is not wholly living, but for now inhabiting. The warrior. No longer is he the dazed, confused little ant scurrying from the flame, he’s building the bonfire himself…” TCH goes on to state: “In the end Spike chooses to remain in limbo. He’s discovered that the fear of Hell is to be balanced with the life going on around him, rather than to be the reigning theme. He’s going on living in a state of leashed-ness, his perpetual state, because it’s in that cauldron of mixing influences that he can continue to change, with the dynamism that has always been a crucial part of his character.”_

“Fear of Hell balanced with life going on around him rather than to be the reigning theme.”

This reminds me of two things: 1) Conversations in Wales: A woman I chatted with in 1988 in Cardiff, Wales once told me, that she did not believe in hell, that this – the life we are living now is hell. A man, Zen follower, who ran a small Zen shop in Cardiff – that hell is a state of mind just as heaven is – and we in effect create it for ourselves. 2) James Marsters Interview on BBC Cult TV – linked to by whedonesque, where Marsters states both his own philosophy and the philosophy of his character. Spike’s philosophy according to Marsters – has changed. When Spike became a vampire he believed he had escaped humiliation, pain, and degradation. Now he is working to get back to it – re-discovering that this is what it means to be human, a state he has a new respect for. It’s a valuable part of the experience. (Marsters own philosophy is to not miss opportunities when they arise, work hard, and strive to do one’s best.)

Pain. Humiliation. Rejection. Degradation. Torture.

In _Joan of Arcadia_ , Joan struggles with right and wrong. In one of the episodes, God’s representatives ask Joan to keep her friend’s artwork out of a school exhibit. Joan can’t understand why. And has a crisis of faith. Is this really God approaching her? What if it’s something else? Is there even a God? She goes to a rabbi and a priest asking them how they know if something is good or evil? How do you know its God and not someone else? When Joan insists she can’t steal, buy or destroy her friend’s work – God’s representatives nod sagely and tell her that she needs to use her imagination. She appears to be suffering from a failure of imagination. Not understanding what God wants her to do, she chooses to do nothing. Someone purchases her friend’s work – providing him with enough money to leave school. Horrified by his decision to leave school – because of the sale of his artwork. Joan freaks out and destroys it, and in so doing destroys her friendship. Solving nothing. Her parents tell her that there was another way to stop her friend from leaving school. And Joan, tears rolling down her face, mumbles – **my plan lacked imagination.**

So how does one know when an opportunity arises? Or what is the right thing to do? How do we know anything for certain? In Joan of Arcadia – they mention the concept “faith” several times. The Chief of Police tells the Mayor he needs to have “faith” in the system. God tells Joan she must have faith in where God leads. God also tells Joan that she always has another chance to do the right thing. Always has a choice. It’s not a one-shot deal. You can make mistakes, just learn from them.

A sense of desperation is enfolding me in its arms tonight, wrapping itself around me until I almost feel I can barely breath.” It’s been following me all week long actually, lurking in the hallways of the buildings I’ve been in and in the winding stairwell of my brownstone. It peers up at me on the face of every bill and from the letters on the calendar that hangs hap-hazardly on my refrigerator. Talking to my mother tonight, she puts words to it, gives it a heartbeat, a sound, that echoes throughout my mind as I watch the TV or hunt jobs on the computer. Telling me – at the ripe-old age of 36, ‘that if I do not locate a job, any job soon, I may have no other choice but to pack up my things in two-three months time and move in with my parents in Hilton Head, SC where I have no friends, no associates, no job possibilities, nothing. A pretty, comfortable hell that I ran from when they lived in Kansas City. I feel like a complete and total failure writing this. I feel like Wes the former head boy staring up from his desk wondering if he’s doing the right thing, if he’s weak. And I find myself procrastinating things like making plans to go home for Xmas or writing that damn marketing plan. Should I have stayed in the evil company? Should I have taken the opportunity this week – even though I knew, in my bones it was a scam? (I would only get paid when I brought in quality modeling talent – ten per quality person. Not for my time or effort.)

So I guess I’m wondering if we really can bend reality to our will. Do I like Joan lack imagination? Not sure. I feel as if I’m trying to grasp something but it keeps eluding me. Like a blind man standing at the tail end of the elephant trying desperately to decide whether or not to trust his friends view that it is really an elephant and not just a very large mouse.

Getting back to ATS – it is not self-doubt that Pavayne is trying to instill, but resignation, certainty of failure, of submittal to his power. Is Spike’s dilemma all that different than our own or Angel’s or Wes’s for that matter? Doubting ourselves.

Joan’s crisis of faith in tonight’s Joan of Arcadia isn’t really in God but in herself, her faith in her own ability to determine right from wrong. Just as Angel’s crisis of faith is becoming his ability to determine right from wrong. Am I hero? He asks himself repeatedly. After what I did to my son? To my friends? How can I be? He is wondering what his role is. If he has one. If it even matters. He feels like everyone’s puppet. Much like the character of Riley did in Season 4, where he felt as if everything he did, thought, considered was devised by someone else. In Primeval – S4 BTVS, Riley has a behavior chip that literally controls his physical actions – much like a puppet. He is not his own man. Angel feels the same way as he sits at the top of the chrome and glass building that W&H gave him in return for giving the world back it’s free will. Am I nothing more than destiny’s puppet?

Reality Bends To Will. But does it? In a cause and effect universe where there are millions upon millions of people affecting what happens next, how can we be sure what we do makes any difference? For instance – does it matter whether or not I post this to the internet? Would I be better off keeping it private, unseen on my hard-drive. A friend of mine tells me she’s almost finished writing a book, but she doesn’t plan on sharing it with anyone – letting anyone read or publish it. This reminds me of myself when I wrote my book, I just needed to write it. Others convinced me to actually share it. Now, after self-publishing so many essays, heck literally a book’s worth of essays on the internet, I find myself wanting to share my written words with others. Hoping that it will make a ripple, even if it is a small one. Granted I’m not making money off of it – which in the society I live in is often considered the only worthwhile result, nor am I getting any rewards (outside of a small one from the BC&S posting board – which I just learned awarded me with 34% of the votes, the Plato Award – or the reward for the most University Level Essay…nice, if a tad ironic, considering Slayage.tv turns my essays down all the time, without giving me a reason why. I assume they aren’t scholarly enough.), or being published in any magazines or scholarly journals – but somehow the fact that someone occasionally reads my words and responds, makes me think hey, maybe there’s a point to all this after all? And their response? Often feels like the guy at the trunk of the elephant screaming back at me – it’s not a mouse, it’s nose is too long, it has got to be an ant-eater. While the guy at the side says no, the legs are too big, I’m thinking Giraff? And the guy in the middle – nope, the skin is too tough, feels like a horse. And as we juggle the data and discuss it, we finally realize, hey it’s an elephant. It’s the answer Joan missed due to her lack of imagination and Angel misses due to his – when Joan’s mother tells her – you didn’t have to do it alone, you could have discussed it with us, we had resources. Or Angel realizes in The Tale of Numero Cinquo – you don’t need to figure this out alone – you have friends. Or the choice Spike makes in Hellbound – trusting Angel and AI with his dilemma.

Hell like evil – I’ve heard tell is the absence of friends, the absence of any connection, the absence of God, if you will. The disconnection. So maybe that’s the metaphor these shows are reaching for, maybe that’s the point of our own struggle, the opportunity we need to keep in sight – to constantly reach for that connection with others?


End file.
